Josh focuses on environmental enforcement defense, litigation and strategic counseling, assisting clients with government enforcement actions and internal investigations, and advising on air, water, and waste compliance issues with a focus on mobile source (cars, trucks, equipment) air emissions. Josh’s clients include heavy-duty truck and engine manufacturers; major auto manufacturers; electric vehicle manufacturers; non-road mobile source manufacturers of large and small engines and equipment; auto parts manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, and installers; major energy companies; waste management companies; chemical manufacturers; trade associations; utilities, and municipalities.

Environmental Enforcement Defense

Prior to joining B&D, Josh served as Senior Trial Attorney in the Environmental Enforcement Section of the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). During his DOJ career, he litigated cases and negotiated settlements under all of the major environmental statutes. Josh was DOJ’s Lead Counsel in the historic United States v. Volkswagen AG, et al. ("Dieselgate") civil Clean Air Act (CAA) enforcement case and multidistrict litigation, where he negotiated a complex settlement worth nearly $17.5 billion, including a $1.45 billion civil penalty. He received the prestigious Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal and was named Federal Employee of the Year in 2017 in recognition of his work. Josh regularly helps clients resolve DOJ, EPA, and state enforcement actions, negotiating complex judicial consent decrees and administrative settlements.

Strategic & Regulatory Compliance Counseling

Josh brings the perspective gained from a distinguished U.S. government service career as a DOJ environmental enforcement attorney to provide clients with strategic counsel on air, water, and waste issues with a focus on mobile source emissions. Josh co-leads the Firm’s Mobile Source Team, providing CAA regulatory advice and compliance counseling regarding emissions and greenhouse gas (GHG) compliance to auto, heavy-duty truck, engine, equipment, and electric vehicle manufacturers. Josh represents companies before EPA, the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), and DOJ on investigations, audits, diligence reviews, compliance, and enforcement matters over alleged defeat devices, tampering, Auxiliary Emission Control Devices (AECDs), in-use testing, On-Board Diagnostics (OBD), GHG compliance, and other CAA Title II issues.

Josh’s public service also included a distinguished military career. Josh recently retired with the rank of lieutenant colonel after over 21 years of combined active duty and reserve service in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps. Josh served over six years on active duty as a criminal prosecutor and legal advisor in one of the Army’s largest criminal jurisdictions, then subsequently as a litigation attorney in the Army’s Environmental Law Division, and later as a legal advisor to senior Army leaders in the Pentagon. Clients benefit from the experience he gained advising senior officials across government agencies. Josh also draws on his prior experience as a criminal prosecutor to help clients resolve environmental criminal matters and to guide internal investigations.

Litigation

Josh is an experienced environmental litigator and trial attorney. He has managed every aspect of complex environmental litigation, including significant experience working with expert witnesses from various disciplines to prepare for depositions and trial, and he has led trial teams through the rigors of multi-week jury trials and bench trials. Josh has also participated in numerous complex, multi-party mediation proceedings, yielding favorable settlement outcomes.

Josh’s litigation matters include defending a manufacturer facing contaminated groundwater claims, pursuing cost recovery under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) and state law claims for a school district, and successfully striking down an illegal municipal air ordinance on behalf of a major waste-to-energy company.